The Next George Bush

It’s an unseasonably warm midwinter day when a giant blue campaign bus arrives at a downscale strip mall in Pasadena, Texas, announcing the imminent return of a Republican dynasty. George Prescott Bush, the scion of arguably the most successful political family in American history, is launching a statewide bus tour that will introduce him to public prominence as he runs for commissioner of the Texas General Land Office, an important but generally obscure statewide position.

Bush is a lock: He faces no serious challengers, a fact attributable largely to the overwhelming advantages that accompany his name. Come November, the handsome, studious and half-Hispanic 37-year-old George P. will walk into public office, and a choir of observers will begin a round of intense speculation about what his ascensionmeans for his party, his state and his country.

One might think the Bushes had acclimatized themselves to public recognition by now. Yet there’s Pierce Bush, another nephew of former President George W., fleece-jacketed and playful-seeming as he circles the giant bus emblazoned with a huge blowup of George P.’s face, taking pictures with his phone. “It’s not every day you see your cousin on one of these,” he tells me. He seems proud—and a bit incredulous.

Inside the strip mall, the small office of the San Jacinto Republican Women is packed. Older women stand around chatting about P.—his resemblance to different members of the Bush family and the well-being of Barbara Bush, George P.’s grandmother, who recently told the nation it should forget the dynasty thing and look outside of the “Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes” for a new generation of leaders. Her grandson seems not to have taken the message personally; asked about it at another campaign stop, George P. said that Barb was talking mostly about the presidency.

Bush has been campaigning with a calculatedly low profile for months, but this six-week, statewide bus tour, starting a month before early voting begins for the March primary, is something of a coming-out party. While land commissioner is an important post—the office oversees Texas’s oil-rich public lands—campaign events for the position usually have as much pomp and circumstance as a rotary club meeting in a dry county. Today, though, there’s a lot of enthusiasm, with even the manicurists at next-door Orchid Nails, who do not speak much English, recognizing the Bush name and coming over to have their picture taken with the candidate.

When George P. finally takes the microphone, he speaks for just over two minutes. It’s a speedy pitch, laden with slabs of red meat for the GOP faithful—proof that he has adopted the rhetorical style of the state’s Tea Party faction. “Our state’s values and our future is under attack, and this attack is being led by one man and one man only, and that’s Barack Obama. He wants to bring his liberal progressive agenda to the shores of Texas. And I think we sum up our message to him and Wendy Davis in just two words,” he says. “No way.” He goes on to speak about guns and the Second Amendment, partial-birth abortion and renewing the state's pride in its petrochemical industry—none of which falls even remotely under the purview of the land commissioner.

No one seems to mind. Afterward, P. poses for pictures and makes the rounds in the shopping center. Then he departs for well-heeled fundraisers in downtown Houston.

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When people talk about George P.’s potential, they’re talking about two things. First, there’s his name. For those keeping score: George P. is son of Jeb Bush, governor of Florida; nephew of George W. Bush, former president and governor of Texas; grandson of George H.W. Bush, former president; great-grandson of Prescott Sheldon Bush, senator from Connecticut; and great-great-grandson of Samuel Prescott Bush, the patriarch.

Spend time with George P.’s campaign, and it quickly becomes apparent how impossible it is to separate his identity from his family background. Even the campaign photographer working the bus tour, David Valdez, has been shooting Bushes for three decades.

A lot of people develop an early interest in politics, but few have led a political party’s national convention in the Pledge of Allegiance at age 12, as P. did in 1988. | Ron Edmonds/AP Photo

When it comes to the Bush legacy, George P. plays a balancing act. It’s a huge asset, of course, and it lends excitement to what would otherwise be a dull campaign. But he attempts to differentiate himself from the family in ways large and small. For one, he describes Newt Gingrich as a political role model, and whereas his uncle branded himself a “compassionate conservative,” George P. describes himself as a “movement conservative.” He talks earnestly about how he’s “been interested in politics from a very young age.” A lot of people develop an early interest in politics, but few have led a political party’s national convention in the Pledge of Allegiance at age 12, as P. did in 1988.

Born in Houston in 1976, George P. grew up in Florida but returned to the Lone Star State to attend Rice University (and play on the baseball team there) during his uncle’s first term as governor. He then taught public school back in Florida and worked on W.’s presidential campaign before enrolling at the University of Texas School of Law. He practiced corporate law for a time and touts his experience with two investment firms, as well as his service in Afghanistan as an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserve.

When it comes to the Bush legacy, George P. plays a balancing act. | Doug Mills/AP Photo

In conversation, he deploys careful phrasing to distance himself from the family, while simultaneously keeping them close to mind. When I ask what the Bush name means to him in his current campaign, he replies that “they’ve provided their advice. Some pieces have been heeded, some pieces have not been heeded.” Sometimes, though, his phrasing is less careful. On a number of occasions, he has used the royal “we” to refer to his campaign or his family or both, like when he recently told the Associated Press, “We’re a mainstream conservative that appeals to all Republicans.”

Despite that statement, Bush hasn’t, in fact, asserted himself as a mainstream conservative, instead using the heated rhetoric of the Tea Party. At the Pasadena event, he closed by telling the crowd that they “deserve a future that springs from the wells of freedom dug deep under the ground by the founders of our great republic and the heroes of 1836”—a nod to the Texas revolution.